This isn't a trip about two worldly wanderers with a death wish, or two kids who are too young to know better, or too reckless to care - just two regular guys bitten by the desire for a little real life adventure. We found ours in Mexico...

The above picture pretty much illustrates the general public's perception of travel in Mexico at the moment. If you decide to consider a trip south of the border, you'll hear more about the dangers (both real and imagined) than you ever wanted to know. There's just no way around it. Are there dangers - yes. Are they too great to warrant a visit to one of the most amazing adventure destinations on earth. That, you have to decide for yourself. Every one who has never been said "don't go". Those who have been said "go". In the end we felt that we (1) weren't getting any younger, (2) we had (in a Margarita induced moment of weakness) gained wifely approval and those are never to be wasted, and (3) to quote Mark Twain, you'll "be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did".

So, we went...

But let's back up for a minute. Let me introduce the would-be intrepid travelers.

Once we decided to get on with it we began to gather up our gear. Wes lives about thirty minutes from me. Since we both have families and low paying, long hour, businesses to run we had to prepare separately. We only got together a couple of times in the month or so leading up to the trip. We made lists, made piles, ordered our TVIPs (temporary vehicle import permits) and insurance, passports, blah blah blah.

We did a few short rides to shake the bugs out. Then we focused most of our time burning the midnight oil at our respective shops, trying to make sure we finished up our work that had to be done before we could skip out to play on the bikes. As May 20th approached, we realized we could never make our deadline so pushed our departure a day to avoid leaving totally spent and sleep deprived.

Speaking of bikes, Wes rides a KTM 950 Adventure he bought new in 2005, We made a pact not to wash our bikes so they would look less appealing to the banditos.

while I'll be riding my 2012 Yamaha Super Tenere which I've had for about a year now. I forgot to mention the "pact of undesirability" to my Yamaha dealership, and when they balanced the new Heidenaus they scrubbed it up - thus making it once again very lustable.

We'd read all of the reports about small dirt bikes being the ideal choice for Mexico, but we had limited time, a lot of miles to cover, reasonable confidence off-road on these bikes, and well, these are the bikes we have - so we rode 'em!

Here's a look at the gang ready to go thanks to the usual super dorky, yet always reliable "pose with your bikes" picture. Besides everyone told us, "we want to make it easy for the State Department to identify your bodies"!

Shortly after this pic, we pulled out of the driveway and pointed west, as we watched our comfort zone disappear in the mirror.

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"It's a dangerous business, going out your front door. You step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Since our time was limited, the plan was to make the Mexican border as fast as possible - fast bikes, fast roads, fast food on the way to something new. We allowed ourselves two days to cover the distance from Blue Ridge, Ga to Piedras Negras MX where we would shift gears and see the sights. Day one would require us to cover around 600 miles so we settled in to I85 to burn some miles, and to try to figure out this whole taking pictures while riding thing!

Hmmm... what hadn't we taken the time to acquire for the trip? Oh yes, highway pegs! We did our best to stay comfortable through the monotony of Interstate miles. It's common practice around here to slam Interstate travel, and I'll agree it's not much for site seeing. However, what it does extremely well is to allow those of us without an open ended schedule, to travel to the places we'd really like to see. Then it gets us home fast thereby extended our potential range of exploration. All hail the U.S. Interstate system!

We basically rode from tank to tank which for the Super 10 and the big Katoom meant we started looking for convenient gas stops as we approached the 200 mile mark. This also allowed us a chance to re-fill the Camel Backs, chug a Gatorade, and cool down a bit as the temperature was climbing into the 90's.

High temps and afternoon humidity means just one thing in the South this time of year - thunderstorms! And lots of them.

The afternoon riding schedule turned into... ride as fast as we dared until the rain, lightening, and wind forced us to find shelter... hide under a gas station pump until the rain slowed... then repeat. The wind was like nothing I had experienced while riding (and I've crossed Kansas during tornado season). It was honestly the first time I truly thought I was going to be blown off of the road, and this is on a four lane highway! All of this stop and go was really killing our schedule, but we were determined not to trade a day exploring Mexico for a day of touring gas stations in Mississippi, so we pressed on into the night.

Finally, after an exhausting day of starts and stops we arrived in Covington, Louisiana where we temporarily took shelter in a "cave", before seeking out a hotel for the night.

Half way to Mexico, and the true start of our adventure...

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"It's a dangerous business, going out your front door. You step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Edward James place is one of my favorite stops in Mexico, with some real nice riding in the area to boot.

I can see many more trips South in youOoor futures if you can make the time.

Thanks for the encouragement Throttlemeister. Your post reminds me of another preparation nugget I failed to mention. If anyone is reading this post because they're considering a first trip south of their own, I highly recommend picking up the DVD Motorcycle Mexico. Getting a helmet cam view of how things work down South as well as hearing first hand accounts of those who have been, goes a long ways towards easing the anxious mind. I especially liked Throttlemeisters advice on food for the Espanol Impaired... "Order the Especial, they're not going to bring you poison!"
Two big thumbs up!http://www.motorcyclemexico.com/store/

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"It's a dangerous business, going out your front door. You step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Since neither Wes nor myself are what you'd call "morning people", we rolled out of bed at the crack of 8:30, had three or four cups of coffee, and got on the road at the crack of 10:00. The sun was already intense to the point that we put on our riding gear in unison, neither of us wanting to stand around with a helmet or jacket on baking while we waited on the other to dress. Fortunately, I'm about 10 seconds more organized than Wes at all times, which made it appear as though I was really on top of things.

Back to the grind. This time following Interstate 10W across southern Louisiana.

Eventually we noticed we had ridden onto a bridge that seemed to go on - and on - and on. In fact I was really beginning to worry about our gas situation. This double bridge sits about 50 feet over the swamps of Louisiana and must be 30 or so miles long. There are no exits, turnarounds, not even a shoulder.

Just as we were approaching fumes, the bridge ended and we came upon a nice gas station and restaurant. The perfect place to refuel the bike and body Cajun style! The restaurant looked really nice, and we thought we'd splurge and have a sit-down, schedule be damned. However, just as we were heading for the door we heard a horn honk. The local good old boy we'd been talking with at the gas station waved us away from our intended Shangrila. He pointed insistently at another joint which was clearly the old gas station convenience store before it was spruced up.

Well, I'm not one to ignore local knowledge, so we did a 180 and had lunch here.

This fine lady told us how lucky we were that we hadn't come through the previous night when a drunken trucker drove the whole bridge in the wrong direction and seriously injured a lot of people. It all worked out however, because once the police blockaded the bridge, they stumbled upon the mass murderer who had been throwing all of the bodies off of the bridge! Hey, all's well that ends well right . I love Louisiana!

And I love gator tail nuggets- properly prepared of course.

After a great lunch it was back on the run for the long, flat, hot, run across Texas. I don't know what's so great about Houston but it must be awesome! I say this because there are about a billion people there and none of them seem to be going anywhere - especially around 5:45 on a Monday. That's all I've got to say about that.

Eventually we pulled into Uvalde which would serve as our jumping off point for the border in the morning. We were pretty whipped but also anxious about our first border crossing. I had chose Eagle Pass / Piedra Negras as our crossing point because it seemed to make the headlines less than some of the more popular routes lately.
That said, I probably shouldn't have been channel surfing as I waited to fall asleep. It seemed that the cartel violence had even spilled over into the Texas side as a couple of dismembered bodies had turned up that very day, directly in the route of our morning travel. Yep, probably should have left that TV off.

Tomorrow - MEXICO!!!

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"It's a dangerous business, going out your front door. You step into the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Just did a 3 day trip to mexico (baja) and have heard all the usual warnings about the drug cartels and such. Your statement about the warnings vs how bad you want to adventure is very true. I weighed the pros and cons and decided to do it. Had a great time and I'll be posting up a ride report as well. Glad you had a great time and made it home safe. Looking forward to the rest of the report.